27 July 2015

“There's a lot of people walking around,
full-grown and so-called normal – they have everything that they were born with
at the right leg length, the right arm length and stuff like that.They're symmetrical in every way. But they
live their lives like they are armless, legless, brainless, and they live their
life with blame.I never heard Michel
complain about anything.Michel didn't
look in the mirror and complain about what he saw.Michel was a great musician – a great
musician – and great, ultimately, because he was a great human being, and he
was a great human being because he had the ability to feel and to give to
others of that feeling, and he gave to others through his music.Anything else you can say about him is a
formality.It's a technicality and it
doesn't mean anything to me.” – Wayne Shorter speaking to writer David Hajdu (excerpted from Heroes And Villains, Cambridge, MA, Da
Capo Press: 2009.)

“I can
feel a piano.It talks to me.”

“And It’s
legal.You can do it in public!” - MP

How he makes it new.He begins
by breaking down chords into their individual notes, reiterating each note several
times like a tolling bell, relishing the
moment. as we try to put the notes together in our heads.Then the melody arrives, dropped down from
where a singer or a brass player might key it, giving the listener a sense of joy that feels almost weird. The tune was Afro Blue. Michel Petrucciani (born Orage, France, December 1962 - died New York City, January 1999) was seventeen when he recorded Date With Time.

What sets the piano apart from other instruments
in jazz is that pitch on a keyboard cannot be bent or smeared as it can on
brass.Pianists make up for this in a
variety of ways.Syncopated rhythms
will accentuate the weak beats,the left
hand plays two strong beats – a note and a chord – while the right hand plays a
melody accented between the beats.This
was dubbed early on as ragtime for these “ragged” rhythms.

Petrucciani was born with the Osteogenesis
imperfecta, a condition commonly referred to as “glass bones.”He acknowledged being in some pain at all
times but said that it was unimportant.He was uncomfortable with the awards showered on him for his virtuosity,
seeing in them pity for his condition.Applause was problematic too; although he appreciated it, it interfered
with getting more music out there.“That’s why I play 45 minutes non-stop….I prefer laughter to
applause.” One such performance that was recorded (Au Theatre des Champs-Elysses,1997) began with another of his favorites, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage.

“You know sometimes when I play a concert… and I have that right timing…
those notes make me feel warm and good… it’s like lovemaking, it’s like having
an orgasm.

“It might
lead me to death… meaning that I’d be on my deathbed saying, too bad I can’t
live another year, I would have been much better.”
- MP

It was after hearing some Duke Ellington
records, Petrucciani decided to study piano. When he was fifteen he played in a
trio with touring Americans, trumpeter Clark Terry and drummer Kenny
Clarke.He went on to record Ellington
compositions like Caravan.One my favorites is his version of Take the A Train wrapped front and back
with his own delicious tune She Did it
Again.

His playing has been
compared to Bill Evans (“the salt of the earth to me”) for his lyricism
and to Oscar Peterson forhis
virtuosity.But the 1980s were a strange
time in jazz, critics were feeling sour and Petrucciani's joie de vivre did
not suit their mood.

“When I play, I play with my
heart and my head and my spirit… I don’t play to people’s heads, but to their
hearts.”

“…the pitfall is that when I make a mistake it
sounds absolutely outrageous, really horrible because everything else is so
clear!” - MP

When the eighteen year-old Petrucciani showed up at his door, Charles Lloyd
was playing his horn to the trees ofBig
Sur and practicing transcendental meditation.Lloyd looked back later and marveled: “It doesn't seem possible to have
all that wisdom, maturity and coloring together at his age.”But it was. Rejuvenated,Lloyd formed a new quartet so the two could work together.Montreux '82 (Blue Note) was recorded
live in Switzerland and released under Lloyd'sname.The next year Peturcciani
gave a solo recital at Carnegie Hall and the American jazz critics, basically
an all-male East Coast cabal (even today,) were forced to take note.When he turned twenty-one, Petrucciani became
the first French musician to be signed to the prestigious Blue Note label. In retrospect the live recording Power Of Three (1986) where Petrucciani is joined by Wayne Shorter on saxophone and Jim Hall on guitar was one of the best of the decade. Just listen to Bimini, a calypso written by the unlikely duo of Jim Hall and the multi-terrestrial Sun Ra.

“I’m a brat.My philosophy is to
have a really good time and never let anything stop me from doing what I want
to do. It’s like driving a car, waiting for an accident. That’s no way to drive
a car. If you have an accident, you have an accident—c’est la vie.” – MP

As he toured at an infernal pace, it would be easier to name musicians Petrucciani didn't play with than those he did. All his friends urged him to slow down but that was no part of his plan

New York is my energy," Petrucciani once told an interviewer. He died there days after celebrating his thirty-sixth birthday there on January 6 of a pulmonary infection. He is buried at
Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, one grave away from another pianist - Frederic
Chopin.On New Year’s Day 2000, during
my first solo broadcast radio hour, I played Petrucciani’s Chloe Meets Gershwin.

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Why The Blue Lantern ?

A blue-shaded lamp served as the starboard light for writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's imaginary journeys after she became too frail to leave her bedroom at the Palais Royale. Her invitation, extended to all, was "Regarde!" Look, see, wonder, accept, live.

"I think of myself as being in a line of work that goes back about twenty-five thousand years. My job has been finding the cave and holding the torch. Somebody has to be around to hold the flaming branch, and make sure there are enough pigments." - Calvin Tompkins